Halo Rouge
by The new god
Summary: A spartan drop out now ONI agent is finds himself in the 40k universe in a UNSC destroyer.
1. Chapter 1

During the battle of Reach.

Someone wearing an ODST armour is running down a hall way in a secret underground ONI facility, his mission is to destroy the facility and all it's secrets.

The battle was lost, no the battle was lost the moment they found Reach.

Now it's only a matter of time till the enemy overwhelm the last of Reach's orbital defences and destroys of what remains of the navy.

While the brave navy men tries to fight the enemy with its battered fleet from the last engagement while hopelessly out gunned, out numbered and without any hope of reinforcements.

While the heroic marines and armies of the UNSC makes it's final but futile last stand against enemy landing parties before being overwhelmed or helplessly glassed from orbit.

While they die a glorius but meaningless death (for the most part) It is up to the him to do the job that is the most important while will never be mention in the history books, that is if humanity survives, while the others fight a meaningless lost battle and be remembered his and others like him will do the most important job and die in the shadows and be forgotten by everyone else.

Such is the fate of being an ex-spartan candidate, even if you didn't make the cut ONI still has many other uses for you.

In his his case being ONI's private hitman squad disguise as ODST.

His mission is to destroy and prevent valuable UNSC assets from falling in to the enemies hands.

The rest of his squad died in an ambush by cloaked elites.

Now their energy swords are strapped on to his thigh as souvenir also incase he runs out of amunition and has to fight in melee.

As he was running down the hall way to his target the floor suddenly a loud bang could be heard.

"crap! They finaly breached the door" he thought before renewing his efforts with hast.

He finally reached the end of the hall way, now facing a set of metal door.

The door required a pass code to be opened.

He immediately typed in the code and the door slowly slid opens.

He didn't wait for the door to fully open before stepping in and closing the door.

Once the door closes he slashed the controls preventing anyone from going in and out.

He turned around and saw a modified UNSC halberd destroyer armed with new experimental weapons and shielding, it's one of ONI's pet project.

A prototype for Infinity so to speack, the project's aim is to try out new technology on a smaller scale before moving on to something big like infinity.

Seeing a ship a thought flashes through his head but he quickly dismissed it "well it's useless to think about it now, the hangar door on the surface was melted by covenant glassing beam and the ship doesn't even have an AI."

Even if he manages to to pilot a ship that is suposed to be crewed by a hundreds and get pass the meter thick hanger bay door theirs still the entire covenant fleet to fight.

He quickly enters the ship and made his way to the control room.

In the control room, he started up the ship and immedeatly tries to overload it's reactor but soon found that it will take hours to overload thanks to the many new technology in corporated.

He cant wait that long nor will the enemy, but suddenly a though came to him a and he immdeatly started up the slipspace drive.

He was not trying to escape but in stead thought of how to destroy the ship.

The covenant super carrier was destroyed with a slipspace drive and now he tries to recreat it, besides as far as he knows silpspace and gravity don't mix well.

As for cordinates he just randomly typed in, it's not like it'll matter any ways as the portal will atomized everthing it touches.

"well then this it how it ends" he said before pressing the button.

Soon familiar black portal apears and sucked in the ship.

Thinking that this was the end he closed his eyes, little did he know that the portal will send him to another universe of eternal war.

Maybe it's because of the new slipspace drive or maybe bacuse he opened it deep in the planet or maybe he randomly typed in right cordinates or any combinations above but one thing is for certain is that he is not on reach anymore.

He opens his eyes and found that he is now staring in to space.

Literally!

It took him a moment for his spartan taining to kicked in and snaped him out of it.

He soon tap on the monitor and scanned the star systems but came back with nothing.

Even though he's in a parrallel universe but it doesn't mean that every thing will be same.

It had long branched of a long time ago resulting in a whole different out come.

Maybe it started out small, like a paticle more present during the beginning of the universe but 'a flap from a butterflys wings can cause a tornado on the other side of the world'.

well it doesn't matter what change because it changed and lead through another out come.

Well reguardless he is now alone in an unfamiliar universe.

\- END -

I'm not very familiar with 40k lore so there will be some mistake, most of my knowlage came from the games like dawn of war.

Well the imperium is vast so anything can happened.

Now a little spoiler, he is going be a Rouge Trader, building an empire on the frontier.


	2. Chapter 2

It been awhile and i have watched a few lore videos about the rouge trader.

While I am not an expert in 40k I am however do consider myself very familiar with halo lore so there would be little problem on the halo front.

... Story start...

One moment he was in an slip space explosion and the next he found himself staring out in to space.

The explotion manages to teleport him out of Reach.

It took William a few minutes to snap out of it before starting to figure what exactly happened.

While slip space physics might not be his specialty but being a spartan he naturally would well veresd in quite a few feilds as they would need to adapt in any stiuation they find themselves in.

Even those who failed in becaming full fledged spartan that doesnt mean that their usefulness ends there, as they can even perform well in feilds outside of combat. Like a spartan 2 named Fhajad-084 who William assumes now assuming the role of a researcher as William came across a few research papers with his named stamped on them.

William eventually figured out that the slip space explotion must have managed to teleport him out of Reach. As for where? He doesnt know, as the chance of it actually happening is astronomically small. Add to that him camming along with the ship camming out of that intact just made the chace of it happening even more unlikely.

His current location is unknown as the computer doesnt have any independant thought and only acts like like calculator, it is kind of expected that the ship AI or at the very least the crew of the ship would take care of that and not one man.

But he has little choice at the matter.

Eventually at the very least he manages to fugured out that, he is at the very least is still in the milky way galaxy, judging by the the surrounding galaxies which kind of resembles the galaxies in the data based such as the the andromida galaxy, triangulum galaxy and so on.

While there are a few abnormal discrepancies but it is still with in the tolerable for maginal error.

On the other hand he was not able to figure out where he is with in the milky way as stellar drift, gravity and time dialation can be a bitch some times. Expecially when one didn't know how far he has travelled. (i will not go dawn to the details as i have written it few times in some of my other works)

It is like having waken up one day only to discover he is suddenly stuck on an Island, while he does know that he is still on earth but as for specific location? He has no idea.

William then thought maybe he should try and go to a different location and get a different view and hopeful find a familiar star.

So he then began randomly jumping hoping to find anything familiar that could serve as a marker. (please do note that each jump took at least few months and naturally William is in stasis pod)

A few years later or a few dozen jumps later William accidentally detects unfamilar communications oiriginating not far from where he was.

Just a few light years away.

At first William thought it was the Covenant as it ciretainly not any reconizable human formate be it UNSC or Insurrection but after a close examination it also doesnt resembles covenant.

This got William curious as he thinks things over.

He has 2 choice on the matter, one is he just ignores it and moves one.

The second is to investigate the origin of the signal and hopefully find something as there is no telling when he'll ever encounter anything else in the vaseness of space.

After a while Wiliam finally made up his mind as he steer his ship closer to to the target.

as he moves closer he finally gets a visual on the target and it is a huge derelict ship drifting in space.

The ship design strikes him as strange, as while the It is not in any UNSC data base it is however has a cuirtain human touch to it, boxy design with sharp edges along with what seems to be antennas sticking out.

Completely different than any covenant design, stream line purple halls.

The ship seems dead as it lays there drifting through spac with it's engines off.

The ship seemed to have just emerged from a battle visible from the damaged halls and from looks of the still ventilating atmosphere it was quite recent.

Looking at the ventilating atmosphere, William ponders on the posibility of survivors and how they might impede his investigation on the ship.

William at this point the ship must be filled with aliens and thier surovival is none of his concern and even if by the slight chance that is crewed by humans, then they must be from the Insurrection and is also none of his concerns as anything not part of the UNSC/UEG doesnt concern him.

It is best to investigate the ship while its fresh rather then later a lot of valuable data could be lost when the ship is fully ventilated and most life on the ship is dead.

William desided to investigated the ship and boarded a pelican.

Moments later the pelican heads off to the derelict ship.

...story end...

I think you guys can probably guess how he is going to get his warrent of trade.


	3. Chapter 3

Got a bit more familiar with the 40k and William will now be part of a rouge trader crew instead of being a rouge trader himself.

—-story start—-

William boarded the derelict ship and once inside he discovers that the place is a bloody mess.

Corps of what seems to be humans humans littered the floor, blood spatters everywhere and broken cables and wires hagging dawn with sparks occationally running through them.

It looked as if he was in a horror set.

'humans? Damn since when did the Innies built ships this large?' william was intrigued as it seems that this ship is an insurrection ship, he didn't think much for now as there is still not enough information to work with.

William then picked up his battle rifle and proceeded with caution.

He slowly moved through the corridors and gently silently passed through the mess around. He is careful to not make alot of noise as to alert any potenial enemies of his presence.

He paid extra attention to his motion tracker as there is no telling what danger lurks within this ship.

'if it moves then chances are it is dangerous' William thought as he searches through the corridors.

He searched the ship for a while picking up a few things that caught his eye, like a datapad looking device or one of the few foreign looking guns.

He eventually arrived at a corridor filled with... well... it ls messier to put it mildly.

it is messier and bloodier then that he had seen so far.

body parts littered the the corridor ,blood splattered everywhere like one of those 'abstract' paintings that is reason for painters to be lazy and put little effort in their works while making a fortune, burn makers and claw marks riddled the walls as if a painter wanted to destroy the abomination he has just created but failed to do so.

seeing this William thought 'it seems that an epic struggle took place here, now the question is what were they defending?'

william proceeded to move forward pass through the dismembered body parts and puddles of blood.

he walked forward until he arrives at a sealed door seemingly filled with an extra layer of claw marks and dent marks.

'What ever the attackers wanted is on the other side of this doo' William whisper to himself as he prepares bust through the door.

of course he is not going to be an idiot and try to kick down a metal door, if a creature who can placed those dents around the walls around couldn't do it then chances are his leg ain't going to do any better.

So what he did instead took out a few c-12 shaped charge explosives and place them on the door before going back a fair distance and detonating the charges.

Booooom

An enormous explosion rangs out and the door was soon gone.

William then charges through the smoke in to the room.

As he was charging through the smoke a red beam suddenly flashes by his head.

William ducks and rolled on the ground before stopping in a kneeling position with his weapon aimed at who ever tried to shoot him.

soon as the smoke clears he discovered that his assailants is also pointing a gun at him.

time seems to have stopped as they both stared at each other in a Mexican standoff, william stared at the guy wondering what he's thinking all the while examining the guys appearance.

'He' (William assumes it's a he since there is very little to work with) is wearing an outfit that seems to be based on WW1 German uniform with the gas mask and a trench coat, although it is not a carbon copy but the resemblance is quite shocking. Which would suggest that this insurrection faction is probably related most likely descendants of the Frieden faction during the rain forest wars that happened a years ago.

'hmm? Did know they were still around ' William though as lately they have been a bunch of weird insurrection groups popping up.

His eyes then wonders off to the he is carrying and focused on it.

'strange gun design' he thought as he examines the weapon.

'the other probably also thinks the same about my gun judging by where he is looking ' William thought to himself as the other side is also eyeing at his gun.

Anyway William then proceeded to start examining the room he is and hopefully find a way to beak out of this deadlock. He also made sure that he wouldn't get noticed doing that by keeping he head forward and only looking at his surroundings with his eyes, as he is wearing a tinted helmet the other side wouldn't notice his wondering eyes.

His eyes eventually lands on another human inside the room, seemingly unconscious as she lays flat on the floor holding on to a parchment of sorts tightly.

'She' yes it's a 'she' as far as he could tell with the slim out line coupled with the pretty face. Though her face has blood stains and her dirty blond hair is messy, it did little to cover they beauty.

She seemed to be in her late teens or early 20s wearing... a costume. Yes a costume based on the age of exploration with a grim tone and dark colour scheme.

It looks elaborate and well detailed with the black as the main colour with a bit of crimson red lining on the edges of her clothes.

Anyway as he's examining the young girl a tremor suddenly shook the ship followed by a loud roar.

"Roaaaaaaaaaar!"

Moments later more roars fallowed suit

""""""Roaaaaaar!""""""

and seemingly getting louder.

'They're heading this way' William thought as he looks back to the guy with the gun pointed at him.

While William has no idea what the creature is like, but if the blood spatter and claw marks is any indicator, it would be in his best interests to leave the ship as fast as possible.

The other guy also seems to be aware of the danger they're in, while the guy seems willing to die but 'he' (spoilers it's a woman cuz she's the girls personal bodyguard) then looks at the unconscious girl at the side and quickly lowers 'his' gun and rushes toward the unconscious girl.

'He' quickly puts the girl over 'his' shoulder rushes towards the door where William stood.

Now William doesn't have a very good impression of the who had just pointed a gun at him nor is he particularly found of unknowns back into his ship.

As it seems that judging by the action that 'guy' has taken, the other side wants to bring 'him' along with the girl back to his ship.

An interesting side note is that the girl seems to be of great importance, as it seems that her safety is enough to deter a warrior who would rather die then surrender.

While saving the girl who is very likely possibly be a person of great importance to an unknown faction is great, but that alone is not enough to convince him to bring them aboard his ship.

He is part of ONI for crying out loud, his only concern is his objective.

When covenant came and started slaughtering civilians in the city, what did he do? Did he play the hero and save them?

No he ignored them and continued on his mission, it's not that his hatred for the covenant is not enough but it's just that it's not his mission.

He's in a top priority secret mission that must not be discovered by the enemy. Destroying all top secret documents is much more important than playing hero or his self gratification.

When the covenant fleet encircled the planet it's pretty much the end. Everyone is sentenced to death at that moment.

Everyone knows that, the higher ups knows that and the civilians too as much as they try to pretend otherwise, they too knows that.

Going to the shelters will do them little good as covenant ground forces will dig them all out, as the UNSC higher ups pretty much guessed that the covenant has a way to detect humans.

(A bit of halo lore: humans are reclaimers. The forerunners put something in our DNA to make forerunners tech work for humans. So the covenant can use this to detect the locations of humans across the world from their ships)

By the way most shelters are not deep enough to protect the from covenant glassing beams, unless it's military grade dug deep underground.

(As seen in halo Waypoint the return)

So this shelter thing it's pretty much a make believe to reduce panic and chaos.

Saying that they are however a valuable source of information, as he might not get this chance again and stuck wondering the cosmos making one random jump to another.

With that put into considered he decided to bring them back to his ship.

This decision took only a few moments.

When that 'guy' reaches the door William quickly told him

"fallow me!"

As he swiftly turns around and rushes back the way he came.

He carefully leads the 'guy' back through the intricate hallways with the help of his HUD (heads up display) in his helmet.

He made sure that he doesn't run to fast as to lose them but also not to slo ether, because of the blood thirsty monsters behind them.

Unfortunately it seems that despite the 'guy's' best efforts to run as fast as possible but carry a body would naturally drag 'his' speed dawn.

And the roaring noise keeps getting closer and closer.

'They'll reach us before we reach the drop ship' William thought as he grabs a grenade and seemingly carelessly tossed it behind him.

This seems to have dissatisfied the 'guy' as 'he' was carrying a person of great value and William did it without warning.

'He' of course naturally much to his dissatisfaction dodged out of the grenade's way.

A few moments later a loud bang could be heard fallowed by a squeal, then an angry roars

Bang! muraaaa! Roaaaaaar!

'That pissed him off' William thought as he turns to the last corner and sprinted into the Pelican.

He hops into the pilot's seat and waited for that guy carrying the girl to board the ship before closing the ramp and blasting off into the void.

—-story end—-

What do you guys think so far?


	4. Chapter 4

The Pelican lands on the ship and they step off the ramp.

That 'guy' is eyeing 'his' new surrounding and seems to be surprised about something.

'Most likely trying to find where the crew is and think of ways to back stab me' William lamented

Unknown to William who has no idea of how the imperium works or their xenophobic and neophobic tendencies.

'He' is also suspecting that the ship might be of xeno origin.

As 'He' never seen any imperial ship with this design and the place looks brand new too.

Now being part of a rouge trader crew 'He' normally wouldn't care and there wouldn't be any problem as long as they're out of Imperial space...but the problem is that they're IN imperial space.

Why is a rouge trader in imperial space you might ask?

Well the previous captain (now dead) and also father of the unconscious girl is a poor ass rouge trader, who is going to a very very very very distant relative to beg for money.

After the girl's father pretty much squandered the family fortune when he was much younger. Ever since then he vowed to rebuild the family by going on adventures and by taking risks.

Unfortunately ambition and capability are two different things, he has spent his youth drinking and partying of course he doesn't know jack shit about being a rouge trader! He might have a strong kidney and might have a strong tolerance to drugs but besides that there's nothing!

Needless to say he has been scammed dozens of times and had been tricked to traps and ambushes, each time only just barely escaping each time.

Sometimes the risk pays off and discovered a few ancient relics but those times are rare and far in between.

Any William leads the 'guy' carrying the girl to the Med bay.

He then moves to a medical table with various apparatus and gestures towards the table.

"Put her there" he told the 'guy'

The 'guy' simply just stood there and stared at him to which William stared back.

Eventually that 'guy' muttered something incomprehensible, add to the fact that 'his' muffled voice behind that gas mask made it even harder to hear discern individual worlds from each other.

Strangely enough the translation software on his helmet picked up the the language as a mix of Spanish, English and Chinese with a strange dialect.

(High gothic is a mix of all Earth's languages so it should be made up of mainly English, Spanish and Chinese earth's top 3 languages)

He frowns

He tries again this time slowly "put...her...on...the...table" he points at the medical table

'He' mutters another string of gibberish but this time knowing that it's primarily made up of English, Spanish and Chinese it started to sound more coherent.

Of course he still couldn't understand a single word of it.

To which he gave up communicating through language and directly grabs on to the girl on 'his' shoulder.

But as William was intending to place the girl on the med table, the 'guy' reacted to his aggressive action by drawing 'his' pistol and pointing at him.

Seeing the the pistol pointed at him William gave up.

"Fine" he said

'If 'He' doesn't want her treated the let her be untreated' he thought as he storms out of the room.

But as he was at the He door he hears of something drooping.

Fooop

William turns to look back and saw that 'guy' placed the girl on the med table and proceeded to points at the girl.

Seeing this William's eyebrows twitched

'Really now' he thought as he stared at 'him' for a moment

Before he goes back and examines the girl with various instruments all the while the 'guy' is staring intently at him from behind.

Of course having unknowns behind him giving him murderous looks is naturally making William uncomfortable, but even so he still proceeded with examining the girl.

Awhile later William finished examining her and turns to the 'guy' and told 'him'

"She's fine"

He then leaves the room

When the door closes he of course naturally locked the door, he of course is not comfortable with the idea with unknowns wondering around the ship unattended.

He then went to the bridge and proceeded to jump into slip space as the derelict ship is giving out some unusual readings, so it's better to leave it just in case.

Once in slip space he then proceeded to start examining the language that 'guy' used.

After a while he managed to understand stand certain words that are English in origin, it's just that it's pronounced strangely.

(Try hearing Medieval English, it sounds very strange but some words are still understandable )

Right around this time the security cam shows that the girl seems to be awake now.

William heads over there to have a little chat with his new guests.

—-story end—-

Just a short chapter this time.

Now for those who are worried about this bing another trees huger, peace loving and getting lectured about morality and how it's evil to do this and that. Don't worry about it.

It's pretty rare to find a story where you don't get lectured for doing the logical thing.


	5. Chapter 5

He arrives at the med bay and the auto door slids open revealing a pretty girl examining the med bay.

She turns to him and uttered something in her strange tongue.

William could only understand bits and pieces of what she said "I $ Mariana Lapis Alexandrite @ $@$)@@..." the rest is untranslatable gibberish.

She then bows as it seems that was her introduction.

William replied "I am William Ackerson Captain of the ship you're on and the one who rescued you"

William didn't tell them his affiliation as he is hesitant to give out information before he figures out what his situation is, besides he strongly suspects that they probably understand as much as he understand them.

Hearing his response the girl or in this case Mariana quirky her brow as she said something while looking at William, but it wasn't directed at William.

"Lucy $@@%#" the only part William understand is the first part, which sounds like a girl's name.

Or it isn't a name at all but some other word that means completely different things.

Then that 'guy' or 'Lucy' steps up and began a brief exchange with Mariana.

After a the exchange Mariana just smiles as she looks at William.

To which William just quirk his head to the side and stared at her.

This lasted for a while before she started talking as she took out a data pad and started skimming through it.

It took William awhile before he too suddenly had a bright idea as he too took out his data pad ( made by ONI of course) and start fondling his data pad.

He connects his his HUD to his datapad and tries to connect with with the girl's data pad.

While there's some incompatibility but his data pad is made by ONI meaning it has a wider range of functions than what you would normally expect.

Also that girl's data pad is made the tech priest of Mars it could it's designed to be able to interface with pretty much most cogitators (computers in 40k terms) through out the imperium.

Soon a little icon popped out in her data pad which caught her by surprise for a second before she eventually acceptes the connection.

William the sents her 3 files containing the vocabulary of English, Spanish and Chinese.

She receives the files and she smiles as she looks at him before long that smile slowly turns to shock. It seems she discovered something shocking about the files he sent.

William frowns in his helmet as he quickly double checks the files he sent but found not particularly of note.

Unknown to William the reason why she seem surprised is because the files he sent her seems to encompass high gothic but clearly they are 3 distinct different languages.

She skimmed through the 3 languages and the data pad's machine spirit seem more then eager to help her in this endeavour.

Though it seems that the machine spirit had a little trouble with the third language called 'chinese' having literally millions of characters.

It seemed to be a completely unrelated language at first but when you start speaking the the language, all of a sudden the language doesn't seem that different anymore.

Mariana recognise some of these 'Chinese' symbols on certain ancient Terran relics she had seen, she had recalled that the guy talking about it mentioned that it's a pre gothic Terran language that has been long lost.

This perked her interest as it seems there's more to meets the eye from the man standing before her.

After awhile the machine spirit happily informed her that it has finished making a workable transition on the language the man is using called 'English', while not perfect but it works enough for short simple sentences.

She sent a copy of the translation back to him as she smiles.

William receives a copy immediately adds it to the translation list.

He then tries it to speak a sentence using the translation she sent.

"Greatings might I know your affiliation?" Said a mechanical voice.

While that's not exactly what he was trying to say but it works fine enough.

Mariana on the other hand is surprised as she began to think that what the man in front of her might not be a man at all.

Then a wild theory popped in her that 'He' might be an automated machine made by dark age Terrans, he might even be linked to the ship directly or he is the ship.

'It would explain as to why there seems to be no crew besides 'him', the strange ship design, the ancient pre gothic languages to even his instantaneously ability to learn high gothic when I just sent him the file' she thought as she smiled warily.

Then William proceeded to interroga... I mean ask her questions nicely.

And what he came up with is that he apparently got transported to the far future into the 41 millennium. There's seems to be an immortal emperor setting on on a golden throne in a mountain size palace above earth or Terra as the now calls it. He got the general imperial history about the age of strife, the great crusade, Horus heresy and a few major incidents leading to the 'modern' 41M.

He also got the general governmental structure of the imperium, it seem that the imperium is like a tributary empire, the imperium is very Xenophobic which is not much of a problem with him, very religious towards the emperor and has a machine cult that controls all things regarding technology.

Now Mariana here claims to be a rouge trader an explorer of sorts.

While the validity of the information is questionable and still needs to be confirmed, so William revealed very little information regarding himself as he is very suspicious of their words.

He only revealed that he is William Ackerson (well he could be considered as Ackerson's son as all SPARTAN II is pretty much considered as Halsey's children) and the owner of this ship and he just so happens to stumbled upon them.

Anyway he left the room and went to examine the data pads he had salvaged from the ship to confirmed their words.

—- story end—-

Any idea of future directions this story should take?


	6. Chapter 6

William verified the information and...well... it's true for the most part but very much embellished and very miss leading undertones.

'Well... she didn't lie' William thought as he contemplated what to do with them.

As he was doing that his stomach grumbles as he starts to feel hungry.

Unfortunately since food deteriorates it's pretty much one of the last to be put into the ship so... there's no food on the ship.

Yeah he's in deep water this time.

He's been fine for a few years now is only due to him being in cryo sleep but as much as he stalled he'll eventually get hungry and starved.

So he can't dump them in space as much as he hates unknowns, they're pretty much his only ticket to his survival.

'Better start getting in their good side' William lamented as he remembered that guy named Lucy pointed a gun at him.

Awhile later

He then forced himself to walks back to the med bay where Mariana and Lucy is at.

Facing the door William sighs

Sighs 'looks like I have little choice on this matter' William thought to himself as her forced himself to open the door.

The door slids revealing Mariana and Lucy talking to each other.

They stopped talking and Mariana turn her head and smiles at William saying.

"Now to what may I owe the pleasure?"

William steps into the room walks in front of Mariana and said.

"After careful consideration I shall to join your banner " A mechanical voice rangs out.

Again not quite what he wanted to say but that works too.

This of course surprised Mariana as she had expected that she would be held hostage or sold to slavery or something but never in her wildest in her wildest dream that 'He' would offer to join her crew, especially when she's penny less with nothing more than the clothes on her back and her body guard.

She regained herself and asked for confirmation "c-can you repeat that?"

William's translation software replied "I wish to join your banner"

'This translation software needs some work' William thought.

Mariana just stopped and stared at him for a moment as she thinks about it.

She eventually accepts and then asked him why did he suddenly asked to join her crew.

William replied "limited supply and lost" at this time a holographic images of empty food banks.

Seeing the hologram Mariana started to salivated in her in mind as she did expected that this tiny ship could have holographic technology and its hers now.

She eventually forcibly quenched it all dawn as she can lose control later, right now is serious business.

She then asked "What are you?"

William replied "Human"

She stared at him with an unbelieving eye as she reaches for his helmet. Her hands lands on is helmet and she gently takes off his helmet revealing a handsome young face.

William was part of beta company the second generation of SPARTAN IIIs the same generation as Noble SIX.

William stared at her for a moment before taking back his helmet and wearing it again, he has no idea what she's saying without it.

It seems she understand that the helmet is doing the translating so she smiles while looking at him. she then proceeded to ask more questions where he's from? Where did he get the ship? Why he speaking an old long dead Terran language? Where is the crew?

She pretty much forced him to spill the beans as he doesn't know enough about the world he's currently found himself in to fabricate a lie.

He could try to lie but once he's found out... it wouldn't be good, saying that he however still kept a few things a secret like being trained as a Spartan. He just told her the general overview of his situation.

So he tells her that he's from the past with videos paying at the background to support his claim. He showed her that he jumps into slips space within a planet.

Unknown to them the translation software is still not perfect so it assumes that slip space and the warp are the same thing. In fact it's not.

It caused her to be surprised as the chance of coming out unscathed from warping within a planet is very very very minuscule.

Gravity and warp jumps generally don't mesh well together so no wonder he has been sent Millions of years into the future.

yes he came from the second millennium during the early days of human exploration into space. Mariana is astonished to discovered that he come from the past.

While she has heard stories of the warp sending people across people across time but she had thought those are just stories.

'It seems that there's some truth to those stories after all' Mariana wondered.

The ship is also from ancient Terran while it might be much smaller for her taste but beggars can't be choosers. She is grateful for the Emperor for sending this gift to her already.

Earlier she had been worried that this ship is a xeno ship, while it might not be much of a problem outside of imperial space but they're currently in imperial space and the imperium is anything but tolerant to anything not human.

Knowing it's of human made saves her lots of trouble of explaining and bribing. Especially since her father was not particularly the most well know rouge trader nor has he the best reputation, not mentioning the fact that she's broke right now.

Then she asked the ship's capabilities.

William showed her ship's armaments with the help of the hologram. it has shields and armor, the MAC gun, 26 Archer missile pod (30 Missiles per pod so 780 Missiles), 4 point defense gun and 3 nukes.

Of course William kept a few secrets like the Nova bomb hidden in a secret compartment.

Mariana is not impressed with the specs of the ship, the only thing that caught her attention is the spinal MAC gun and the 3 nukes. On a second thought it's already impressive for a ship this small to have such an arsenal. It could take on a sloop scout ship which is 2 time longer and 3 times heavier.

Anything larger... don't even dream of taking a corvette on a head on head fight.

Then William played a footage of the Keyes Loop where a single Halberd class like the one they're on single handedly beat back by imperial standards a Xeno scouting force.

The footage played revealing ship like the one they are on, in a collision course at the much larger xeno destroyer while launching a nuclear warhead in what seemed the wrong direction. The two escorting xeno Frigates proceeded to launch one Plasma torpedo each, but that ship managed to evade by utilizing the emergency thruster. Having missed their target, the plasma came about and continued to track and home in on the Human warship.

The trailing ordinance was to prove critical to the success of "Keyes" (the captain of the human ship) strategy. A last minute course correction allowed human ship to merely "graze" (scrape) the xeno destroyer's shields rather than smash directly into the ship , resulting in the destruction of a large portion of human ship's armor.

However, the tracking Xeno plasma torpedoes were unable to correct themselves for the sudden maneuver of their target and, consequently, hit the Covenant destroyer instead. A heavy salvo of Archer Missile sent the remainder of the Xeno warship to its destruction.

With the momentum built up during the first phase, the human ship performed a slingshot maneuver around the planet. Once safely away, the nuclear warhead deployed earlier was detonated, completely draining the shields on the two xeno Frigates. Having completed its orbit, the human ship resumed its attack and destroyed the two Frigates with two heavy MAC rounds and hundreds of its remaining Archer Missiles.

That single Halberd class ship destroyed 2 xeno frigates and 1 xeno destroyer.

Mariana is surprised that such a maneuver was possible and the nimbleness of the ship to evade at the last second is simply astonishing.

Unfortunately she is uncertain of herself to be able to pull off such a maneuver. After watching that video Mariana began a new found respect for the ancient Terran captain to be able to pull off such a maneuver.

Also her evaluation of the ship has somewhat been elevated.

William the moved onto the vehicles the ship contains 2 custom Pelican with cloaking capabilities (like Tart-Cart used by kilo-five) and 2 Mantis Mark IX walkers with shields.

Hearing this perked Mariana ears as cloaking technology and portable shield technology is pretty high end products, meaning they're worth a lot.

Though their weapons being heavy stubber somewhat dissatisfies Mariana but that could be fix by replacing them with a lascannon.

'Now that's more like it.' Mariana imagines mounting a lascannon on one of the 'Mantis'

William continues on to the small arms at which there's a hint of... contempt? Disdain? On Marian's face hearing that the ship is mostly carrying stubbers and projectile weapons. Especially that face is quite prominent when he is talking about the spartan laser (which is shitty when compared to a hellgun)

'It seems that projectile weapons has long been fazed out' William made a note of this as it's 39 thousand years since his time so it's natural that they would have better weapons.

Though the aim assist function arose Mariana's interest. (Yes I'm making the in game mechanic aim assist an actual thing. As in real life right now there's an actual gun that aims and fires by itself called TrackingPoint. It wouldn't be hard to imagine a few generations later it would evolve to the aim assist we use in games)

The railgun too perked her interest being recoiless while delivering a heavy slug at supersonic speed.

She said It punch like a 'Bolter' whatever that is.

Of course William didn't tell her about a crate full of ancient xeno (forerunners) weapon he is keeping in his quarters, it seems they were recently found in some ancient ruins deep under the surface of Reach.

Then he moves on to the grenades and explosives, nothing special as William didn't mention anything about the nuclear grenades and kept them all in his quarters.

Also he's not blindly trusting them as he had rigged the Nova bomb to go 'boom' remotely the moment he gets back stab.

After giving the general summary of all the things in the ship William left the room and gave her time to digest all the things he had said.

Of course he is always monitoring them trough the security cams, he's making a huge leap in trusting them.

Even when she had used the rouge trader's honor and swearing to the Emperor name, it seems archaic and being part of ONI lies and deceit is pretty much a daily occurrence,so he can't trust those words.

'I'm not going to trust on their word alone' William thought to himself.

The moment they show signs of betrayal, the moment they say as much as one wrong word he'll vent out the atmosphere in the room they're in.

—-story end—-

So what do you guys feel about William untrusting nature?


	7. Chapter 7

After William left, Mariana and Lucy chatted for awhile as they talk about what just happened.

It seems that Mariana is very happy with the development as she praises the the great God Emperor.

Lucy on the other hand cautioned her as this seems to good to be true, Lucy said that there must be some hidden motive behind his action.

They converses for awhile before Mariana decided to look around 'her' new ship.

Since they are now not prisoners William didn't lock the door and let them wonders around.

He still watches them though through the security cams.

Eventually they arrives at the bridge where William is at.

William is currently seating on the captain's seat as he watches the security cam footage, when Mariana and Lucy steps into the room William naturally closes the security cam window and slowly spins the chair around.

"Welcome to the bridge " William said.

She then smiles as she stares at him then stares at the chair then back at him again. Clearly she wants to seat on the captain's seat, she is the captain after all.

This is her first time being a captain, previously it was her father who was the rouge trader and therefore the one on the captain's seat so she naturally has to seat on the smaller second on in command chair at the side.

She had always dreamed of one day of succeeding her father and sitting on The Chair or The Throne as some rouge traders calls it, because out side of imperial space the captain's word is the same as the Emperor's decree and no one can question him.

While not knowing that little detail but William clearly knows what she wants from her gaze. Even so he still asked "What business do you have?"

At this time a single brow on Mariana's beautiful face twitched as she stares at him while saying nothing.

At this time Lucy steps out and saids with a demanding tone "Chair... get off"

"My apologies captain, it is crucial for the function of the ship for me remain seated at this chair"

William the gestures at the empty bridge and continues

"As you can see due to the lack in... crewmen" William put heavy emphasis on the word crewmen

"Someone has to compensate for the missing crew to monitor and control the ship"

William the gesture to all the open windows showing various statistics behind him.

"Only the captain's chair has direct access to all the function on the ship"

William naturally doesn't want unknowns have direct control of the ship.

"Unless you know how to how to control the ship with its various functions all written in 'English' which I more then welcome for you to take over"

Hearing that Mariana with the smile still on her face just steps closer to the various windows and examines them.

Naturally she couldn't understand one bit of it being written in 'English' and controls are completely different from what she's used to.

Wiliam being completely right Mariana frowns and just went to the second in command chair grumpily.

Lucy being all like 'hmmp' went to pass William to the other second in command chair on the left. Lucy didn't actually say 'hmmp' it's just that William has that impression.

At this time Mariana then asked "so...where are we going?"

"To the nearest planet to resupply" William replied as a holographic image of the galaxy appears. He had just dawn loaded a galaxy map from one of the data pads from Mariana's ship.

He points to the nearest civilised planet named Krieg. It seems that Mariana's father was also heading there for something.

"We'll arrive in on the planet name Krieg in a few days"

"So can you tell me about planet name Krieg?" William asked

Mariana looks at Lucy then explains the general knowledge like death world with the death Korps. Mariana also explains that she has a distant relative living there.

Also it seems that Lucy is descended from the original imperial guard regiment stationed at the Imperial Valor (Mariana's previous ship)

After that William then leads them to the cryo chamber and tells them to get in them.

Hearing this they visibly got tensed as Lucy got ready to draw her pistol.

They naturally assumes that William is up to some sneaky business and plans to sell them as slaves once they gets into the pod.

William then explains that the food stores are empty so they'll have to stay up and starved for a few days.

"I'm sure you've already explored the whole ship and hadn't found a single piece of food anywhere." William finished with that.

Mariana stares at William for a moment before she goes back for a bit with Lucy and discussed the matter.

After while Mariana came back and told William that Lucy would be waiting it out, so Mariana warily steps into the pod.

William the closes the pod and turns it on.

Then Lucy stares at him, points to an empty pod and said "get in"

Lucy puts her hand closer to the holster as she said that, ready to draw it in case William refuses.

Even though William hates being compelled to do something but he reluctantly steps into the pod.

A few days later

The pods open and William steps out of it, on the other hand Mariana steps out of her's feeling dizzy.

William having experienced this hundreds of times naturally got used to the after effects of cryo sleep, unfortunately for Mariana this is her first time experiencing cryo sleep.

Lucy now visibly a little bit thinner tries to help Mariana up but it seems that being without food and water for a few days did a number on Lucy.

Lucy stumbles a bit but managed to hold her balance.

Mariana eventually regains her her balance and got over the dizziness, after she had steadied herself she complained a bit about the cryo pods.

Knowing that that they're fine (except for well maybe Lucy) William heads to the bridge to check on the status of the ship and the journey.

Later the ship exited slip space and not long after they suddenly being hailed.

"We're being hailed" William told Mariana as she'll deal with the talking, so he puts it on Mariana's second in command chair.

A window appears on Mariana's seat and she's did the talking. Unfortunately they talked in another language that William's unfamiliar with so he just let her do her thing.

Later they got cleared to dock on the space station above the planet called Krieg.

Before he sets off William naturally being very paranoid about being suddenly detained as soon as set one foot off his ship, he sets the Nova bomb to activate in a few weeks.

So in case anything happens to him and he doesn't get back in a few weeks... well they get what they deserve.


	8. Chapter 8

Stepping out of the ship Mariana lead the way.

She guided William through the imperial space station which made him feel surreal. The architecture style seemed to be a strange combination of Greek, Roman and Medieval Gothic. The combination in the background of space just feels strange to him.

The gigantic ships that coming and going through the station that seems more like buildings than starships also made him feel out of the times.

The people, customs and the clothes they wear seems so very foreign to him.

As he is fallowing behind Mariana William is looking around constantly spinning his head examining the new scenery.

Mariana just smiles at William behaving looks like a country bumpkin.

It's quite obvious to anybody around that it's William's first time in a space station.

Mariana then leads him to meet her distant relative who is a noble to talk about business. They eventually arrives to a fine looking establishment with luxurious decorations.

The guard at the door immediately recognised to Mariana and leads them to a meeting room. Later a lady with a fancy headdress comes walking in and greets Mariana.

"Ah Mariana long time no see, so how's your father doing"

Mariana. "Aunt Margarit..."

They conversed for awhile before Mariana or brings the subject at hand.

"Now lets brings the matter at hand" Mariana then takes out a data pad and taps it. "I think this would fetch a high price with the Ordo Dialogous, it's M2 pre-gothic"

William has no idea what they're talking about and he just sits there and quietly listens at the sides.

A servant then steps forward bring a luxurious looking data pad. She then glances over the data Mariana has sent her. A few seconds later Margarit's eyes gradually widens as she stares at the data being presented.

"Where did you get this?" She asked with an astounded face.

"From the data banks of an ancient Terran ship" replied Mariana.

They started negotiating the price.

The meet gradually came to an end and Mariana went out of the room much richer.

William on the other hand has no idea what's went on.

As they were heading to a restaurant to celebrate, Mariana fills in what she had just negotiated with Magarit as they eat.

It seems that Mariana sold the language data he sent her during their first in counter. It apparently sold for quite a huge sum, it baffled William that English, Chinese and Spanish could be sold for a 'huge' sum of Mariana words could be believed.

Mariana tries to explains that this organisation called 'Ordo Dialogous' places great importance on languages and the work they do is very important to the imperium.

She then goes on explaining that the 3 languages primarily makes up high gothic ... yada yada this ... yada yada that... yada yada ancient technology... yada yada hunting heresy... yada yada making the imperium great again.

She goes on telling of a rumour of a rouge trader finding something called an 'STC' that makes knifes and once they brought it back to Mars, Every single one of the crew is rewarded with an entire planet.

Long story short any ancient knowledge seems to worth a lot in the stagnant imperium.

William then asked Mariana why didn't she just sold the whole ship. To which her face darkens as she replied that what use is all that wealth if your not able to defend it.

She then goes on to say that it's common for entire rouge trader dynasty with fleets of mighty ships to be destroyed by simply finding a piece of ancient technology.

Fortunately very few expressed interest in old Terran languages or they'll face constant threats of assassination or be subjected complex conspiracies.

At the restaurant Mariana ordered the best food and they enjoyed the food. Lucy in particular ate the most as she has starved for a few days.

Interesting to note though Lucy naturally took off her gas mask to eat, she has blond hair, blue eyes with an expressionless beautiful face.

It's astonishing though that she can eat at such a fast paced while not making a mess.

Mariana just pretty much talked through the meal with William stepping in once in awhile asking a few points.

The next day, she made a few arrangements the food problem with her new found wealth.

She also pulled a few strings and managed to get a few units of Death Korps Grenadiers, a few Astropath and a Navigator (William has no idea why Mariana got one), a few tech-priest and an Titan precepts at William's requests (this time it's Mariana's turns to frown)

After hearing about the Titans, William got an idea of using precepts to try and see if it can be used to replace the AI.

She also acquired 3 Refractor fields from the Ordo Dialogous of the Adepta Sororitas, which is in no way cheap and easy task to do.

After that when the tech-priest arrives William then ordered for the princept to be mind wiped which mystified everyone. Then he ordered for the princept to be amputated and reduced to a brain in a jar before being plugged into the ship.

It's of course much more complicated then that and there's still the programming of the empty brain. Fortunately The 41 millennium is more than skilful in combining man and machine. They have flying servo skulls and servitors.

Awhile later a holographic avatar that vaguely resembled the appearance of the princept before... he got reduced to a brain appears and said.

"Greatings I'm the machine spirit of this ship called the Everest"

They did around of testing and it passed with flying colors.

'Hmm it kinda works..' William is unsure about it, performance wise it's fine but it speaks very strangely with all the machine spirit nonsense.

William doesn't have a very good opinion of the Adeptus Mechanicus their religious beliefs in technology, which is just ridiculous.

Mariana and the tech-priests are astonished at the results as they had never expected to have such results.

The Magos in charge of the tech-priest commented that the cogitators is very fast and has a large capacity.

After that they stayed a for while more for the crew to get use to the ship.


	9. Chapter 9

"All right is everything all set?" Mariana asked as she steps into the bridge.

This time she smiles as she sat on The Chair, because now that they're fully crewed, everything if fully translated and even has a princept

William pretty much lost all his reason to occupy the the captain's chair.

And for some strange reason he feels that Lucy is going 'HA HA' deep dawn behind that mask (you know like Nelson from the Simpsons) even though she might not seem all that different from her usual self but William just has that strong feeling that's how she feels right now.

William ignores it... yeah and totally not getting to him all... not one bit at all.

At this time "All set" replied Everest the ship's 'Machine Spirit'

"Set a course to Sigmentum Ultima" Mariana replied as she leans back and crosses her legs.

Currently they are on above the planet 'Krieg' in 'Uhulis' sector at the western parts of the segmentum 'Tempestus' basically at the north-east of the standard galactic map. Now the 'Ultima' segmentum is the galactic east.

Such a long trip everyone in the bridge except Lucy naturally looks at her, after hearing it.

Knowing the question in everyone's mind Mariana swings her leg and projected a star charts through the holographic projector which projected a map of the 'Veiled' region.

"Such convince" she commented on the side before continuing.

She then explains that previously her father had sought riches in the unexplored 'Veiled' region so during his life he mainly worked in that area of space.

Mariana then told them that place is infested with 'Necrons' and scarred her for life.

Interesting to note that even when she said her father had devoted to making a name for himself in that region of space, he had actually only explored a tiny fraction of that region leaving a lot of blank spots in the map.

It's seems that that area is more trouble than it's worth, she had explained that her father had even managed to colonised a planet at one point but then they later found out the planet they colonised is a 'Necron' 'tomb' world which led to the destruction of the planet.

She then listed a few more misfortunes and bad luck before concluding that it's better to start in a new area.

Naturally she wants to stay as far away as possible from the western fringes where all of her bad memories comes from.

Mariana then rambles on about the Emperor gave her a new start, she continued on with a chain of events and encounters that started with over hearing a random dock worker chatting with his friend about a rumour about the eastern fringes.

She then inquired about Easter fringes and soon she found herself buying an expensive map of the east.

Mariana then finished it up by saying with an innocent smile that it must be the Emperor that is leading her to go the east.

William's eye brow twitched behind his helmet when he heard what Mariana had just said.

'She got scammed and is not willing to admit that she was fooled' William thought silently.

William wanted to say something but gave up on it at the last second and just went along with it anyway.

—- story end—-

Just a short chapter this time.

So I want to ask you guys which area should she operate? I was thinking of messing with the Taus so I'm making her go there.

As for why not just spawn there? That's because I want to have the Death Korps and they're at Tempestus so I made a scenario where he get the Korps and goes to the eastern fringes.


End file.
